We study the Abel-Jacobi image of the Ceresa cycle $W_{k, e}-W_{k, e}^-$, where $W_{k, e}$ is the image of the k-th symmetric product of a curve X with a base point e on its Jacobian variety. For certain Fermat quotient curves of genus g, we prove that for any choice of the base point and $k \leq g-2$, the Abel-Jacobi image of the Ceresa cycle is non-torsion. In particular, these cycles are non-torsion modulo rational equivalence.

We develop an effective version of the Chabauty–Kim method which gives explicit upper bounds on the number of $S$-integral points on a hyperbolic curve in terms of dimensions of certain Bloch–Kato Selmer groups. Using this, we give a new ‘motivic’ proof that the number of solutions to the $S$-unit equation is bounded uniformly in terms of $\#S$.

We study non-abelian versions of the Mellin transformations, originally introduced by Gabber-Loeser on complex affine tori. Our main result is a generalisation to the non-abelian context and with arbitrary coefficients of the t-exactness of Gabber-Loeser’s Mellin transformation. As an intermediate step, we obtain vanishing results for the Sabbah specialisation functors. Our main application is to construct new examples of duality spaces in the sense of Bieri-Eckmann, generalising results of Denham-Suciu.

The goal of this paper is to raise the possibility that there exists a meaningful theory of ‘motives’ associated with certain hypergeometric integrals, viewed as functions of their parameters. It goes beyond the classical theory of motives, but should be compatible with it. Such a theory would explain a recent and surprising conjecture arising in the context of scattering amplitudes for a motivic Galois group action on Gauss’s ${}_2F_1$ hypergeometric function, which we prove in this paper by direct means. More generally, we consider Lauricella hypergeometric functions and show, on the one hand, how the coefficients in their Taylor expansions can be promoted, via the theory of motivic fundamental groups, to motivic multiple polylogarithms. The latter are periods of ordinary motives and admit an action of the usual motivic Galois group, which we call the local action. On the other hand, we define lifts of the full Lauricella functions as matrix coefficients in a Tannakian category of twisted cohomology, which inherit an action of the corresponding Tannaka group. We call this the global action. We prove that these two actions, local and global, are compatible with each other, even though they are defined in completely different ways. The main technical tool is to prove that metabelian quotients of generalised Drinfeld associators on the punctured Riemann sphere are hypergeometric functions. We also study single-valued versions of these hypergeometric functions, which may be of independent interest.

For a formal scheme $\mathfrak {X}$ of finite type over a complete rank-one valuation ring, we construct a specialization morphism

\[ \pi^{\mathrm{dJ}}_1(\mathfrak{X}_\eta) \to \pi^{{\textrm{pro}}\unicode{x00E9}{\textrm{t}}}_1(\mathfrak{X}_k) \]

$\mathfrak {X}$

$\mathfrak {X}_k$

For an infinity of number rings we express stable motivic invariants in terms of topological data determined by the complex numbers, the real numbers and finite fields. We use this to extend Morel’s identification of the endomorphism ring of the motivic sphere with the Grothendieck–Witt ring of quadratic forms to deeper base schemes.

In this article we prove exactness of the homotopy sequence of overconvergent fundamental groups for a smooth and projective morphism in characteristic p. We do so by first proving a corresponding result for rigid analytic varieties in characteristic $0$, following dos Santos [dS15] in the algebraic case. In characteristic p, we then proceed by a series of reductions to the case of a liftable family of curves, where we can apply the rigid analytic result. We then use this to deduce a Lefschetz hyperplane theorem for convergent fundamental groups, as well as a comparison theorem with the étale fundamental group.

We compute a presentation of the fundamental group of a higher-rank graph using a coloured graph description of higher-rank graphs developed by the third author. We compute the fundamental groups of several examples from the literature. Our results fit naturally into the suite of known geometrical results about higher-rank graphs when we show that the abelianization of the fundamental group is the homology group. We end with a calculation which gives a non-standard presentation of the fundamental group of the Klein bottle to the one normally found in the literature.

This paper stems from the observation (arising from work of Delzant) that “most” Kähler groups $G$ virtually algebraically fiber, that is, admit a finite index subgroup that maps onto $\mathbb{Z}$ with finitely generated kernel. For the remaining ones, the Albanese dimension of all finite index subgroups is at most one, that is, they have virtual Albanese dimension $va(G)\leqslant 1$. We show that the existence of algebraic fibrations has implications in the study of coherence and higher BNSR invariants of the fundamental group of aspherical Kähler surfaces. The class of Kähler groups with $va(G)=1$ includes virtual surface groups. Further examples exist; nonetheless, they exhibit a strong relation with surface groups. In fact, we show that the Green–Lazarsfeld sets of groups with $va(G)=1$ (virtually) coincide with those of surface groups, and furthermore that the only virtually RFRS groups with $va(G)=1$ are virtually surface groups.

The germ of the universal isomonodromic deformation of a logarithmic connection on a stable $n$-pointed genus $g$ curve always exists in the analytic category. The first part of this article investigates under which conditions it is the analytic germification of an algebraic isomonodromic deformation. Up to some minor technical conditions, this turns out to be the case if and only if the monodromy of the connection has finite orbit under the action of the mapping class group. The second part of this work studies the dynamics of this action in the particular case of reducible rank 2 representations and genus $g>0$, allowing to classify all finite orbits. Both of these results extend recent ones concerning the genus 0 case.

We use higher ideles and duality theorems to develop a universal approach to higher dimensional class field theory.

This paper sets up the foundations for derived algebraic geometry, Goerss–Hopkins obstruction theory, and the construction of commutative ring spectra in the abstract setting of operadic algebras in symmetric spectra in an (essentially) arbitrary model category. We show that one can do derived algebraic geometry a la Toën–Vezzosi in an abstract category of spectra. We also answer in the affirmative a question of Goerss and Hopkins by showing that the obstruction theory for operadic algebras in spectra can be done in the generality of spectra in an (essentially) arbitrary model category. We construct strictly commutative simplicial ring spectra representing a given cohomology theory and illustrate this with a strictly commutative motivic ring spectrum representing higher order products on Deligne cohomology. These results are obtained by first establishing Smith’s stable positive model structure for abstract spectra and then showing that this category of spectra possesses excellent model-theoretic properties: we show that all colored symmetric operads in symmetric spectra valued in a symmetric monoidal model category are admissible, i.e., algebras over such operads carry a model structure. This generalizes the known model structures on commutative ring spectra and $\text{E}_{\infty }$-ring spectra in simplicial sets or motivic spaces. We also show that any weak equivalence of operads in spectra gives rise to a Quillen equivalence of their categories of algebras. For example, this extends the familiar strictification of $\text{E}_{\infty }$-rings to commutative rings in a broad class of spectra, including motivic spectra. We finally show that operadic algebras in Quillen equivalent categories of spectra are again Quillen equivalent. This paper is also available at arXiv:1410.5699v2.

In order to study $p$-adic étale cohomology of an open subvariety $U$ of a smooth proper variety $X$ over a perfect field of characteristic $p>0$, we introduce new $p$-primary torsion sheaves. It is a modification of the logarithmic de Rham–Witt sheaves of $X$ depending on effective divisors $D$ supported in $X-U$. Then we establish a perfect duality between cohomology groups of the logarithmic de Rham–Witt cohomology of $U$ and an inverse limit of those of the mentioned modified sheaves. Over a finite field, the duality can be used to study wildly ramified class field theory for the open subvariety $U$.

In this paper we construct a $\mathbb{Q}$-linear tannakian category $\mathsf{MEM}_{1}$ of universal mixed elliptic motives over the moduli space ${\mathcal{M}}_{1,1}$ of elliptic curves. It contains $\mathsf{MTM}$, the category of mixed Tate motives unramified over the integers. Each object of $\mathsf{MEM}_{1}$ is an object of $\mathsf{MTM}$ endowed with an action of $\text{SL}_{2}(\mathbb{Z})$ that is compatible with its structure. Universal mixed elliptic motives can be thought of as motivic local systems over ${\mathcal{M}}_{1,1}$ whose fiber over the tangential base point $\unicode[STIX]{x2202}/\unicode[STIX]{x2202}q$ at the cusp is a mixed Tate motive. The basic structure of the tannakian fundamental group of $\mathsf{MEM}$ is determined and the lowest order terms of a set (conjecturally, a minimal generating set) of relations are deduced from computations of Brown. This set of relations includes the arithmetic relations, which describe the ‘infinitesimal Galois action’. We use the presentation to give a new and more conceptual proof of the Ihara–Takao congruences.

We study the germs at the origin of $G$-representation varieties and the degree 1 cohomology jump loci of fundamental groups of quasi-projective manifolds. Using the Morgan–Dupont model associated to a convenient compactification of such a manifold, we relate these germs to those of their infinitesimal counterparts, defined in terms of flat connections on those models. When the linear algebraic group $G$ is either $\text{SL}_{2}(\mathbb{C})$ or its standard Borel subgroup and the depth of the jump locus is 1, this dictionary works perfectly, allowing us to describe in this way explicit irreducible decompositions for the germs of these embedded jump loci. On the other hand, if either $G=\text{SL}_{n}(\mathbb{C})$ for some $n\geqslant 3$, or the depth is greater than 1, then certain natural inclusions of germs are strict.

We show that for any commutative Noetherian regular ring $R$ containing $\mathbb{Q}$, the map $K_{1}(R)\rightarrow K_{1}\left(\frac{R[x_{1},\ldots ,x_{4}]}{(x_{1}x_{2}-x_{3}x_{4})}\right)$ is an isomorphism. This answers a question of Gubeladze. We also compute the higher $K$-theory of this monoid algebra. In particular, we show that the above isomorphism does not extend to all higher $K$-groups. We give applications to a question of Lindel on the Serre dimension of monoid algebras.

We extend to compact Kähler manifolds some classical results on linear representation of fundamental groups of complex projective manifolds. Our approach, based on an interversion lemma for fibrations with tori versus general type manifolds as fibers, gives a refinement of the classical work of Zuo. We extend to the Kähler case some general results on holomorphic convexity of coverings such as the linear Shafarevich conjecture.

In this work, we describe a method to construct the generic braid monodromy of the preimage of a curve by a Kummer cover. This method is interesting since it combines two techniques, namely, the construction of a highly non-generic braid monodromy and a systematic method to go from a non-generic to a generic braid monodromy. The latter process, called generification, is independent from Kummer covers, and it can be applied in more general circumstances since non-generic braid monodromies appear more naturally and are oftentimes much easier to compute. Explicit examples are computed using these techniques.

Permutation products and their various “fat diagonal” subspaces are studied from the topological and geometric points of view. We describe in detail the stabilizer and orbit stratifications related to the permutation action, producing a sharp upper bound for its depth and then paying particular attention to the geometry of the diagonal stratum. We exhibit an expression for the fundamental group of any permutation product of a connected space $X$ having the homotopy type of a CW complex in terms of ${{\pi }_{1}}(X)$ and ${{H}_{1}}(X;\,\mathbb{Z})$. We then prove that the fundamental group of the configuration space of $n$-points on $X$, of which multiplicities do not exceed $n/2$, coincides with ${{H}_{1}}(X;\,\mathbb{Z})$. Further results consist in giving conditions for when fat diagonal subspaces of manifolds can be manifolds again. Various examples and homological calculations are included.

We show that higher order invariants of smooth functions can be written as linear combinations of full invariants times iterated integrals. The non-uniqueness of such a presentation is captured in the kernel of the ensuing map from the tensor product. This kernel is computed explicitly. As a consequence, higher order invariants form a free module of the algebra of full invariants.